Charlie Baker: Keeping It Simple Is Complicated

Baker is also on the record in support of the immigration amendment passed by the State Senate last month.

One part of that amendment would require all employers in the state to participate in a federal identification program called E-Verify. Under that program, which is now largely voluntary, employers check Social Security and Homeland Security databases to find out whether newly hired employees are authorized to work in the U.S. Baker would make E-Verify mandatory for all state employers, as sections 42 and 174 of the Senate budget provide.

Hmm. Maybe a problem here?

One organization in the forefront of the opposition to mandating the use of E-Verify is the National Chamber of Commerce, aka

The world’s largest business federation representing more than 3 million business and organizations of every size, sector and region.

Like Charlie, the Chamber is interested in helping employers grow. But they think E-Verify is a terrible idea and have gone to court to stop other states from making it mandatory there. Some of the reasons for the Chamber’s opposition to E-Verify, as the

itself admits, is that the databases include inaccurate and outdated information, the language used by the E-Verify program is “confusing” or contains “difficult legal terminology that may not be readily understood by all users,” and the program imposes significant training and tracking requirements that are burdensome, especially for small employers.

The Chamber supports comprehensive immigration reform. What we oppose is a patchwork of state and local laws requiring employers to use a broken system that Congress has said must be voluntary.

So, back to the drawing board, Charlie, for something simpler? How about coordinating all the state agencies with responsibility for enforcing the labor laws that are already on the books to make sure that no employers exploit their workers and employers who follow the law aren’t paying higher costs than employers who break it? Oh, right, Governor Patrick is already doing that.

The rider on the budget to appease the bloodlust of some irrational and hateful anti-immigrant folks will cost taxpayers enormous amounts of money and in the long run will likely cause us a lot of undue hassle with no forseeable gain. What it may do, however, is target Latino documented citizens (some who were born here) like a Puerto Rican (yes, Puerto Ricans are Americans) in Chicago who was nearly deported “back” to Mexico because of poor information gathering and unreliable systems management. What’s more scary about it is the “hotline” that it calls for to report “suspected” undocumented workers and students. It would be illegal to not investigate such claims, even if they were completely baseless. As someone who grew up in a community where many families had DSS (or whatever the acronym is now) involved, I can tell you what happens when we have to investigate every anonymous tip we get. Tons of taxpayer dollars tied up in family and personal disputes and baseless reports out of vindictiveness. It’s illogical, it’s bad policy, and furthermore, it’s just not a major issue in Massachusetts.